


A single sip of truth

by Celticas



Series: A little sip of truth [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, M/M, MTH2020, delivery man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:01:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28400562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Celticas/pseuds/Celticas
Summary: Phil was convinced the flirty little messages left by his coffee delivery guy were for Darcy.Clint was convinced that the cafe owner barely saw him.
Relationships: clint barton/ phil coulson
Series: A little sip of truth [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2080038
Comments: 33
Kudos: 89
Collections: Marvel Trumps Hate 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cpwatcher](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cpwatcher/gifts).



Phil Coulson loved his job. It wasn’t what he had ever thought he would be doing. As a child, he had imagined himself as Captain America, or at least Captain America adjacent. Maybe his sidekick. As a teenager, he had grand plans of joining the Army and protecting his country. In his twenties, he had just wanted to survive. Stationed in hell, and then trapped in a cell with the devil. He dreamed of the damp freezing winters of Chicago. 

Now in his mid-thirties, he was glad to be mostly walking and holding a steady job when so many of his fellows were homeless or dead.

“NO! Darcy! NO! Put the icing down!” He limped across the little shop as quickly as he could. Taking the piping bag from the waitress and shaking it at her. “NO! We are not doing naughty gingerbread men.” He took the bag with him, just in case.

“Aw, come on MIB! Live a little, they would be awesome!” She called at his slowly retreating back.

“No.” He said. On dark nights, he remembered last year’s overly endowed offerings with a shudder. He would not fall for that again.

Dumping the icing in the kitchen he limped back out, glaring at Darcy for good measure. She grinned breezily at him.

“No.” He said a final time for good measure.

“Fine, fine!” She held up her hands in defeat. “No dirty gingerbread men.”

He didn’t trust her easy capitulation. He just knew he was going to come into the little cafe tomorrow and find she had turned all of the candy canes into penis’ or something equally horrifying.

A few of the regulars laughed at their antics, while newcomers looked on in puzzlement. A deep chuckle pulled him up short, a welcome shiver running in waves down his spine.

“Come on Phil, let her have her fun.”

Clint Barton. Phil’s secret fantasy of the perfect man rolled into a drool-worthy body with a liberal dash of sarcasm to spice the package up to eleven.

He was also the man that delivered the roasted beans that kept the business ticking over, and thus untouchable. Even if he was gay which he wasn’t. The first time he had come into the tiny store, he had spent ten minutes making eyes at Darcy and had been leaving his card with increasingly dirty suggestions in the tip jar for her.

For her part Darcy wasn’t interested, each time Clint left a card, she somehow found a way to sneak it into his paperwork or coat pocket without him noticing. Maybe his secret crush wasn’t so secret.

“No.” He transferred his disapproval to Clint, the other man grinning roguishly at him before shrugging.

“Sure. Whatever. I have a shipment for you out back. This is what the third this month? Must make you happy, business is booming!” Clint spoke into the void as he wound the familiar route through to the door to the alley where he always parked, rightly expecting that Phil was following.

The only sign to show he was aware the other man was behind him was his slightly slower pace than normal, allowing for Phil’s halting gait. For his part, Phil was glad the other man was perpetually distracted, otherwise, he would have seen the harsh pink flooding Phil’s cheeks.

Clearing his throat he managed to answer without sounding like he was choking on his own tongue. “Yes. Yes, we are very happy with how business is going.” He could hear the awkwardness in his own voice. But hoped no one else could. “Skye hasn’t been able to step away as much as we had hoped to be able to focus on school. She’s still doing two evenings and one weekend day.”

“The extra money can’t hurt though.” Clint observed, stopping beside his van and turning to look at Phil. He and the young woman Phil had taken in two years ago, just after he started at the cafe, had instantly bonded over tragic backstories and a deep and abiding love of all things caffeinated.

Phil had never set out to pseudo adopt a homeless teen, but somehow, she had just set up shop in his heart and refused to leave with a truly impressive mixture of foul words in more languages than even Phil knew. It had happened anyway and she had crashed on his couch for six months before he gave in and finally set up his second, tiny and probably an actual closet, bedroom for habitation. Two months ago she had moved from his tiny apartment to an even smaller dorm room at NYU on a scholarship. That didn’t mean he saw her any less.

“I think it is all going to computer parts.” He said without an ounce of judgement. Only pride.

“Good for her.” Clint grinned.

Pushing off from where he had been lounging against the van with his arms crossed across his impressive chest, he flung open the back doors and started loading boxes onto a trolley.

Getting everything out of the van and into the storage room was a smooth, quick, well-practised move. Guiltily, Phil helped, knowing Clint was getting so good at it because of a few little white lies. Shoving it from his mind, he firmly told himself the cafe needed the coffee he was ordering and thus it wasn’t wrong or exploitative and the little voice that sounded a lot like his boss from his Army days could just fuck right off.

“Let me get you a coffee before you go.” Phil made his lopsided way back to the front of the shop to find that in his absence, Darcy had liberated the icing and was halfway through happily decorating his previously perfect gingerbread men. He scowled at his wilful employee but left her to it. Too late now after all. How was it that for almost a decade he had had hardened Army Rangers running scared with a simple eyebrow raise, but hipster Darcy was completely immune to actual reprimands? She could teach his old unit a whole new, scary bag of tricks.

Skye had also arrived at some point while he had been distracted by Clint, as subtle as a 2-by-4 to the head, she raised her eyebrows at Clint’s back and waggled them suggestively. He glared at her, trying to silently tell her to stop!

Noticing his unimpressed expression, Clint twisted to look over his shoulder, his grin widening when he spotted Skye. “Skye Blue!” He turned around and swept her off her feet for a very enthusiastic hug. “How are you?”

The twist had given Phil an excellent view of the other man’s muscles as the soft jersey of his henley was pulled tight over his shoulder and back. The view was only improved by him turning around. Denim clung everywhere he could ask it to, lovingly cupping an ass to make Michael Angelo cry. 

Consciously not listening to their conversation, he set a take-away cup under one of the spouts of the espresso machine and set the machine whirring. A large slosh of milk and dollop of foam on top with a liberal sprinkling of shaved chocolate finished the drink off. Handing it off to Clint, he had to hold himself still when the rough tips of Clint’s fingers brushed against his when he accepted the offered drink.

“See ya next time Coulson!” Clint saluted him with the coffee cup and sauntered out through the kitchen.

It wasn’t until he had closed up and was splitting up the tip jar that he found the note. Well, not a note really, it was a business card that smelt of freshly roasted coffee that had a lewd suggestion written on the backside, letters skittering around the logo.

He blushed at the note and regretfully slipped it into Darcy’s envelope. It wasn’t the first such time Clint had left a written proposition for the waitress. The first few times he had handed them over to Darcy she had tried to give it back, firmly of the opinion that the coffee guy was interested in  _ him _ not her. But he knew his worth. He knew that his quickly receding hairline, gammy leg and abysmal dating record, read nothing more substantial than a furtive one night stand to avoid DADT in...ever, made him a poor choice for anyone to set their flag at. There was no way someone as young and attractive as Clint would be making  _ those _ suggestions to him. Darcy was the much more likely option because Clint saw Skye like a sister and that led to very, very icky thoughts. Particularly the incestuous intimations of Phil being interested in his pseudo-daughter’s pseudo-brother.

Just no.

Bad thoughts.

They were friends, and that was all, and his crush wasn’t as bad as all of that.

Banging his head against the wall lightly, he flicked off the lights and locked the door behind him, resolutely putting all thoughts of his coffee delivery guy’s relationship to anyone out of his mind.


	2. Chapter 2

He was running out of pick up lines, double entendres, and every other conceivable way of letting Phil know he was interested. Unless you asked Natasha, she would tell you that actually telling the man he was interested was an option. The best option in fact. But as that was a patently ridiculous suggestion he was ignoring it.

Instead he was sitting at a bar he hated on a saturday night with a drink in front of him that he hadn’t touched. That he wouldn’t touch. Echos of the hits he and his mom and brother had taken for years from his alcohol addled sperm donor kept him from losing himself in the bottle the way he wanted to. Spinning the cold, slippery glass between his fingers, he tilted it until it was balanced perfectly on a single edge, the amber liquid inside naturally parallelled itself to the pale wood of the bar below it.

“You need to suck it up.” The Bartender scowled at him. The man’s resting face was murderous, so the scowl made him look like the the murder was imminent. Bucky was Clint’s favourite of the two men who operated the bar, the earnest aw-shucks attitude of Steve was almost never what he wanted to be faced with when he was looking for an escape from the world.

“Suck what up?” He scowled back. Each of them saying a thousand things with their aggressive micro-expressions.

“What ever has you in my bar taking up stool space from someone who would actually drink what they ordered and spend some fucking money in my business.” Bucky shot back.

He was right. Just like Natasha was right. And Bruce. And every other one of his friends who had told him to grow up and tell Phil that he was interested in him. He would, he decided. Next time he saw him. He would ask to speak to Phil, maybe about his account or something, anything to get him alone. Putting his heart out there in the open was one thing. Doing it in front of anyone else was another, completely unacceptable thing.

Swallowing the burning alcohol in one long pull, he dropped the glass on the bar with a couple of bills underneath and left. Pulling his coat tighter against the biting wind. He hurried to his car. The deep purple, highly polished mustang was waiting for him exactly where he had left it. Sliding into the chilled leather seat, and lazily wrapping his fingers around the thin steering wheel. Instantly he felt calmer. The cold leather was smooth under his rough palms.

Only putting the key into the ignition when the leather had warmed under his fingers. The throaty purr of the engine split the night. In any other city, people would be cursing at him for the noise, but in New York, he was just another loud noise in a chaotic sea of loud noises.

Pulling into the empty street he drove mindlessly. Not ready to go home but with no other destination in mind. He wasn’t surprised to find himself turning onto the street Phil’s cafe was on.

A figure halfway down the next block caught his attention. The uneven gate well known to him, but worse than he had ever seen it.


	3. Chapter 3

Winter was curling her icy fingers around the city, at the bigger coffee chains' pumpkin spice was giving way to the steady forward march of peppermint. At Cup Half Full Phil was glaring at the coffee syrups in grumpy defiance. He hated the trendy hipster bullshit flavours, and nothing Skye or Darcy said would convince him that it was just a bit of fun and he would enjoy the holidays more if he got into the spirit a little.

Coffee was sacred and if the roast and brew was of the right quality, it was an offence against god to doctor it with anything other than milk and maybe a bit of sugar. And even those were pushing it.

“Excuse me, can I get a pumpkin spiced latte to go?” A voice chirped behind him.

Without turning around he could already see the girl in his mind. And he knew it was an unfair stereotype, he knew that Skye was just as likely to order the saccharine drink, but for some reason he imagined a preppy blonde girl in not enough clothing and a halfway vacant expression on his face.

Normally more charitable, he was grumpy and barely hiding it. His leg had been aching with the onset of the deeply cold weather and kept him up for most of the night. His patience with the world was done.

Breathing deeply to contain the glare and unkind words that wanted to trip off his tongue, he pasted a blande expression, a smile was beyond him, on his face and turned around. The woman standing patiently at his counter was nothing like he had imagined in the .3 seconds since she had spoken. Light brown hair was pulled neatly back into a low ponytail and a cardigan was half closed over a collared shirt. She was almost as small as Skye and was smiling up at him patiently.

A shred of his frustration sizzled out.

“Small, regular, or large?” He asked, already tapping the order into the screen that Skye had ordered and installed without telling him. Apparently Marcus had okayed it, or had at least shrugged and let it go when he had seen the newest technological addition to his shop.

Inexplicably, her shoulders relaxed. “Regular please. I’m so glad you don’t use those absurd Starbucks sizes!”

She was English. A primness to her words that hadn’t been obvious when she first spoke.

He couldn’t help the chuckle that broke free. “No. No incomprehensible Starbucks’ sizes here.” He agreed, throwing in the staff discount to make up for his earlier uncharitable thoughts.

Half a dozen heads turned sharply in his direction at the soft chuckle. A couple of the regular’s blinked owlishly over their books and newspapers at him. Scowling at them, he turned back to the woman. “And a name for that?”

“Jemma.”

“Won’t be a moment.” He left her standing there. Setting the machine to fill her cup, he drizzled in the other ingredients and finished the whole drink with a helping of full-fat milk and foam, lightly sprinkling a spice and sugar mixture over the top. He had the drink done and capped in just over a minute. “Here you go.” He used the last of his energy, the good will having burnt off quickly, to draw a tired smile across his face. “Have a good day.”

“You too!” She dropped a handful of change into the tip jar and was out the door before her words had faded from the air. The jingle of the bell on the door an echo of her bright presence. 

The next person in line was as insufferable as he had assumed Jemma would be, pretentious drink choice and infuriatingly long debate with himself about whether he wanted a croissant or not. It was all Phil could do to not shove the eventually ordered pastry down the guy’s throat just to get him to shut up, whether through leaving at the offence or suffocating to death on the perfectly buttery pastry. The interaction with Jemma ended up being the only bright spot to his day, by the time he was closing up at quarter to midnight, two hours after he normally shut, because a large group of inconsiderate assholes heading out to ‘the clubs’ hadn’t taken the subtle and not so subtle hints to get the fuck out.

In short, he was exhausted and his leg had seized so badly, he could barely walk. Getting home was going to be a blast…


	4. Chapter 4

Driving a little closer, he knew he was right. It was Phil, limping painfully down the sidewalk, a cane in hand that Clint had never seen him use before. Slowing down further, he timed his stop to right beside the other man. Phil threw a look at the car but kept moving. Not recognising the car that he had never seen before or the driver who was too low for him to see clearly.

Scrambling for the door handle, he cursed the thing when it stuck. He had been meaning to fix that for ages and just never gotten around to it. Finally, wrench the door open and tumbled gracelessly out of the car. Old instincts had him popping to his feet quickly.

“Phil!” He shouted. He should have stopped further up, where Phil would be rather than where he was.

The halting gait faltered, he was turning. Squinting against the dim lights. “Clint? Is that you?”

“Hey. Hi. Um. How are you?” He asked. What the hell was wrong with him? It was past midnight and he could see the exhaustion written deep in every line of Phil’s face, the slope of his shoulders, and the way he was leaning all of his weight off his bad leg. He never showed weakness.

“Fine.” Phil said slowly. “How are you?” There was no interest in the words. He could have been asking about the sick goldfish of someone who was barely an acquaintance. Not a work colleague, and definitely not anyone he was interested in as more.

It stole the little bit of certainty that he was going to say anything about his crush, or obsession as Natasha called it. “Um. Fine. I was just um on my way home.” He lied. “Do you want a lift?”

He could see Phil hesitate, although he didn’t think the other man knew he could see him. His eyesight got him into a lot of trouble, and got him out of just as much, just not always the same trouble.

“Sure. That would be great, thank you.”

Scrambling around the door, he opened the door. Everything in him wanted to offer more help, a steadying hand, but knew the fiercely independent man would never accept it. Once all of Phil’s limbs were safely in the car, Clint gently pushed the door closed and raced back to the open driver’s side.

The leather had cooled in the short time he had been out of the car, the wintery air stealing his warmth. Bumping up the air to replace the lost warmth, he turned to look at Phil.

Sitting deep in the chair with his eyes closed, he looked like he could fall asleep right there. Was it the first time he had sat down all day? It was a strong possibility. As loath as he was to interrupt the moment of peace, he had no idea where he was meant to be driving.

“Phil? Hey, man. Where are we going?”

There was no response except for the slightest tilt of Phil’s head as he unconciously shifted to get more comfortable. 

“Phil?” He lay a light hand on the closest shoulder.

A hand wrapped tightly around his wrist, pulling him sharply across the car, until he was stretched painfully aross the gear shift and hand brake. The leather covered metal pushing into his ribs.

“Wha?” Phil muttered, looking around confused and bleary.

“Ow.” Clint answered.

“Oh! Sorry.” Instantly the hand released his.

Sitting up straight, he rubbed his wrist and then his ribs. “It’s all good. Shouldn’t have startled you.” He knew better he mentally kicked himself. “I don’t know where we are headed though.” Glossing over it seemed the better option. He knew the vets around him did want their ticks or PTSD symptoms poked at, especially when they were already feeling vulnerable.

“Right. Clinton Hill, Lafayette Avenue. Herbert Von King Park?” He asked.

A dozen blocks or more. In a car it wasn’t that far, even during the day, or earlier in the evening there were trains that ran pretty regularly. Clint thought there was a station close to Lafayette Ave. Bedstuy-Nostrand maybe. At this time, only a cab would have gotten him home in any sort of reasonable time.

What had he been intending to do? Try and walk?

“No problem.” Clint checked the road for traffic before pulling away from the curb. Better to get moving before Phil started thinking he was a burden and tried to get out.

The ride was quiet, Phil slipping back into his half doze and Clint watching the road carefully to stop himself from being distracted by the exhausted man next to him.

Winding his way through Brooklyn, with it’s never ending traffic and one way roads, took a while. But eventually, he pulled onto the specified road. A small park on the right and a wall of brownstones on the other. Now it was a matter of figuring out which was Phil’s. Each building looked exactly the same, nothing shouting that it was occupied by one Phillip Coulson.

“Phil? Which house?” Clint pulled into the first parking space he could see. There weren’t too many options for which house was Phil’s and there were no other options for parking so this would have to do.

Sliding easily out of his seat, the gratefulness he would have liked to have exhibited half an hour earlier when Phil had been awake to see it, he rounded the car. Easing the passenger door open, he crouched down.

“Come on Phil. You need to wake up.” He didn’t lay a hand on him this time, but he spoke carefully and loudly. Even but strong.

“Hu? Oh. Um. What?” Phil asked, a hand rising to rub sleep from his eyes.

“We’re home.” Clint said, moving out of the way so Phil could see the street and didn’t feel trapped if that was a trigger for him.

“Oh. Thank you.” Awkwardly he extracted himself from the car, his leg and hip had obviously stiffened during the drive and were making it even harder for him to move.

To Clint it also looked painful, a barely suppressed grimace on the face he had spent eighteen months obsessing over as obvious as the smile wrinkles around his bright blue eyes.

With difficulty he got himself up right and tried to take a step. The cane wasn’t enough support. His good leg gave out, overworked from a long day trying to do double the work it should. Only Clint’s sharp eyes and quick instincts kept Phil from faceplanting on the cold pavement.

Phil steadied himself and then tried to shrug off Clint’s hand. Clint let him, the arm dropping to hand down his side. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t watching every twitch and grimace. Making sure Phil would be okay.

He stumbled, and could barely put any weight on his bad leg, but he stubbornly made it up the couple of steps to the closest townhouse. Nice.

“Thanks for the ride home.” Phil stopped at the door and turned around, blocking the door defensively.

“Oh. Okay. You’ll be okay from here? I’m mean… I don’t know what I mean. Have a good night Phil.” Clint waved awkwardly and turned to leave. Half of him desperately wanted Phil to call him back, the rest knew he wouldn’t. Phil’s pride already bruised too much to risk whatever it was that he didn’t want Clint to see behind the door he was guarding so carefully.

“Good night Clint.” Phil’s voice was soft.

Clint had to guess at the words, the cadence and tone all that registered with him. With a sad smile that he would never have allowed Phil to see, Clint kept walking.


	5. Chapter 5

After  _ that _ night, Phil pettered off ordering so much coffee, making sure that the deliveries were booked for when he was off, or out for some other reason. He knew it was cowardly, but he couldn’t face him. Knowing Phil was… broken, and actually seeing it, how bad it could get were two very different things. Especially in the face of the physical perfection that was Clint barton.

He managed to keep it up for a month. Even with Skye and Darcy throwing him increasingly judgemental looks. So far, he had managed to ignore them both. If he could make it through the next week and a half, Skye would be back at school after the Christmas/ New Year break and Peter would be back in the city to distract Darcy. She was convinced the highschooler was  _ meant to be _ with his best friend MJ and up until the break had been putting her considerable brainpower into making that happen.

He could survive ten days.

Hell, he didn’t even have any orders for coffee beans booked in that time, the last one of the long booked deliveries had arrived yesterday and after that he could start moving the excess back from his apartment and Skye could stop giggling at him every time the smell of coffee whispered through the apartment.

Handing over the keys to the shop to Trip and heading out on the last day of trading before their short holiday shut-down, christmas and the day after, and then New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. Trip would close after the last few desperate christmas shoppers left, hopefully before eight but more likely after nine. The guy was happy to take the extra hours, his little brother had just been accepted to college and he was saving what he could to help the family out.

Skye was out in the city somewhere trying to find him a present, even though he had told her not to, and his only plan for the evening was drinking a beer on the couch and catching up on Dog Cops.

The crowd on the subway was quickly sapping the good will he had spent the day building up. Thoughts of making ginger bread with Skye and watching Charlie Brown’s Christmas in their pajamas in the morning had lifted the shitty mood he had been in for weeks. But the oblivious shoving of too many strangers in a too small tin can was wearing it away again.

Stepping out into the sharply brisk air, he breathed in the cold air with relief. Walking carefully down the sidewalk, weary of patches of ice, he took the time to watch the people around him. Making up little stories about their lives, where were they going? What were they doing? Was the harried woman who hurried past him as he waited for the lights to change a single mother working three jobs to make ends meet, or was she a struggling artist looking for that moment of inspiration.

So distracted by the stories he was telling himself, it wasn’t until he almost stood on the figure hunched on his doorstep that he noticed him.

“Clint?” He slipped when he tried to avoid stepping on him. His cane and bad foot hitting a patch of ice and flying out from under him.

“WOAH!” Springing to his feet, Clint wrapped a warm hand around each of Phil’s elbows and pulled him back to upright, keeping him from hurting himself on the frozen concrete.

“Thanks.” Phil glanced at him and then away just as quickly. For the first time in the years they had known each other, he found he couldn’t look Clint in the eye. “Excuse me.”

He tried to dodge around Clint, tried to get into the building without having to interact with him any further.

“Wait! Phil!” Clint let him past but dogged his heels. “I came to talk to you.” Grabbing the door before it could close, he followed him into the building.

Phil frowned back at him but didn’t do anything else to stop him.

“Wait. Phil. Will you just stop? Please?”

“Why?” Phil turned on him. “Why should I stop? So that I can embarrass myself more than I did just then? Or how about that night? No thank you. Please just leave.” Chest heaving from his explosion, Phil turned around sharply and clattered away.

As always the door stuck when he tried to open it, and kicked it in his frustration. It slammed open, hitting the wall and tried to rebound into his face.

“Fuck.” He spat at the offending wood. Stomping through the doorway, he tried to slam it behind him.

“Ow.”

Clint was standing halfway through the door, rubbing his shoulder where the door had obviously hit him.

“What are you doing?”

Once upon a time, he could have bodily thrown Clint out, now all he could do was glare at the other man. It burnt him almost as much as the last time he had seen Clint.

“What is going on? If you were uncomfortable with the… the… the  _ suggestions! _ You should have just said. I would have stopped. But I thought… it doesn’t matter. I’m sorry. That’s all I came here to say. I’m sorry that I made you uncomfortable and in the new year I’lll organise a different driver to do your deliveries. Good bye Phil.”

It was both what he wanted to hear and not. He didn’t want Clint to just disappear like so much else in his life. He didn’t want Clint to be another thing he had pushed away. 

Wait. Suggestions?

Had Darcy been right all along?

Coming out of his daze to realise he was looking at a closed door, he jumped into action. As much as he could these days anyway.

“Clint! Wait!” Throwing the door open, he rushed out, just to almost run over Clint. He hadn’t been lost in his own thoughts as long as he had thought he had been. “Oh. Hi.” What was he going to say? That he hadn’t believed that the letters were for him?  _ Couldn’t _ believe that? Because who would want a broken, boring, aging guy like him? Let alone, a man as perfect as Clint, with his perpetually sunny smile, kind personality, and an ass that wouldn’t quit? Or maybe that he had been avoiding Clint because he was embarrassed that Clint had seen him at his weakest?

“Try starting with that, and continue with, would you like to come in for a cup of coffee?” Clint suggested.

“Hu?” Shit. “I said that all out loud didn’t I?”

Clint smirked at him. “Yep.”

Phil groaned. “Would you like to come in for a cup of coffee?” He asked lamely.

“Sure! Thanks Phil. So nice of you to offer.” Clint chirped back sarcastically.

As he slipped around him, Phil suddenly became aware of the chill coming of the other man. Back in the apartment, he headed for the kitchen to put the kettle on.

“The second door on the right is the bathroom, there are fresh towels in there if you want to dry off.” He called out into the mainroom where Clint was checking out the photos on the bookcase.

“Will do.”

Getting cups and the percolator out, he fit a filter into the small machine and carefully measured out enough for two strong, but not bitter, cups. 

The thunderous avalanche of something tumbling out of the hall closet echoed through the space.

“Shit! Shit! Shit.” Dropping the bag of ground beans, he raced into the hall. “I said the door on the second door on the right.” The first was where he was hiding the extra beans. Lots and lots of extra beans.

The bags that Clint would absolutely recognise reached almost to his knees. At least two had split and the dark brown beans had tumbled out along the whole length of the hall, just waiting for Phil to turn an ankle on them.

“I can explain?”


	6. Chapter 6

“I can explain?” Phil watched him with wide eyes, completely blank of any excuse for the bags that had just tried to kill him.

“Oh really?” Clint dared him.

“Well, you see. I, I thought there would be a big up swing in business around christmas. Late night shoppers you know? So I ordered extra.” He was grasping at straws and they both knew it.

“Phil. Stop.” Clint said softly. Stepping thoughtfully, he moved through the mess. Trying not to lose his footing. “You wanted to see me.” He had put the pieces together and found they were both fools.

Natasha was never going to let him hear the end of this.

The blush that spread like fire across Phil’s face was answer enough. Slowly, he raised a hand until he was cradling one burning cheek. “I’m going to kiss you now.” He said, giving Phil a chance to stop him if he wanted to.

“Okay.” The word whispered from him.

Lips met in a soft, tentative agreement of more to come.

“OH MY GOD!” Skye yelped, startling them both apart.

“Skye!” Phil yelped, almost as high as his daughter.

For his part, Clint burst into laughter. The other two following quickly, the mortification giving way to their natural good spirits.

“I’ll just… come back later?” Skye offered, already backing towards the door.

“No. It’s okay.” They were a matched set. A pair that he would never try and come between. He only wished he had found that place for himself when he was her age, but maybe he had found it now and their duo could grow and stretch into a trio.

Phil’s smile, that he turned on both of them, was a fan on the spark of hope that burnt in his chest.


End file.
